# Foundation (2021)

> A band of exiles undertakes a monumental mission to preserve human knowledge and rebuild civilization as a galactic empire collapses.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/79300

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 30
- Episode runtime: 57 min
- Status: Returning Series
- Genres: science fiction, drama
- Created by: David S. Goyer, Josh Friedman
- Network: Apple TV
- Cast: Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Lou Llobell, Leah Harvey, Laura Birn, Cassian Bilton, Terrence Mann, Jade Harrison
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804484/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: contemplative, grand, tense, melancholic, sweeping

## What critics say

Reviewers praise the ambitious scale, visual craft and political intrigue of Asimov's adaptation while finding its sprawling timeline and uneven character attachment divisive.

## Synopsis

Foundation (2021-present) is an American space opera series created by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman for Apple TV, adapted from Isaac Asimov's classic novels. Jared Harris plays Hari Seldon, a mathematician whose predictive science foresees the collapse of the Galactic Empire, and Lee Pace plays Brother Day, a clone-born ruler clinging to imperial power. Lou Llobell's Gaal Dornick and Leah Harvey's Salvor Hardin move through the margins of this order, as a band of exiles works to shorten a coming dark age into a thousand years of rebuilding. The engine is a long-range plan that must survive political intrigue, rival factions, and the aging of everyone who carries it. Each season covers a new stretch of centuries, so the show plays like a sweeping chronicle rather than a single adventure, with season-long arcs and a serialized structure in which order matters. Its tone is contemplative and grand, with dense political maneuvering, quiet philosophical debate about prophecy and free will, and sleek visual scale. Viewers who enjoy Dune: Prophecy, The Expanse, and Battlestar Galactica will find resonance in its ambitious worldbuilding and its interest in how institutions outlive the people who built them. The series spans three seasons and thirty episodes, with the latest still airing.

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- [Star Trek: Discovery (2017)](https://ember.film/tv/59153)
- [Battlestar Galactica (2004)](https://ember.film/tv/1864)
- [The Ark (2023)](https://ember.film/tv/42933)
- [Raised by Wolves (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/72815)
- [The Wheel of Time (2021)](https://ember.film/tv/62744)
- [Mars (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/60065)

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